Fort Novosel National Prayer Breakfast speaker shares Iraq War experience

FORT NOVOSEL, Ala. -- Fort Novosel Soldiers, civilian employees and family members packed The Landing May 4 for the annual National Prayer Breakfast.

Col. Whitney B. Gardner, U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence chief of staff, welcomed everyone to the event before prayers were offered for the nation, for the U.S. military and for Fort Novosel.

Chaplain (Maj.) Scott Kennis offered the prayer for the nation, Chaplain (Maj.) Tim Shepherd offered the prayer for the military and Chaplain (Capt.) Nathan Perry offered the prayer for Fort Novosel.

During breakfast, Shelia Jackson and her family provided musical entertainment. Then, Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Peter Hofman welcomed the guest speaker for the event, Chaplain (Col.) Scott Koeman, senior command chaplain for Fort Benning, Georgia, and the Maneuver Center of Excellence.

Koeman spoke about God’s promise to always be with His people, quoting Joshua 1:9. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

He related that promise to a time 20 years ago when he was a “newly minted captain, just 12 days after hitting active duty,” and he boarded a plane for Kuwait to meet up with the 5th Battalion, 52nd Air Defense Artillery, a Patriot missile unit out of Fort Bliss, Texas.

He spent January to March 2003 at the camp with the unit, preparing for the upcoming invasion of Iraq.

“I remember I was doing the chapel services in these large tents – like big, giant circus tents. Almost all of the Soldiers would come to chapel. Why? We had no idea what we were going to face, no idea what was going to happen next, and that uncertainty was palpable. At the end of each message, we always ended with same song, ‘Amazing Grace,’ every single week that I preached.”

He said early on Spc. Shoshana Johnson came up to him wanting to talk, and every week they would talk about the same things.

“I was still new, still naïve, and a bit foolish,” he said. “In the midst of my talking to her and letting her share her fears – real fears, real concerns – and in praying with her, I was still finding myself kind of trying to (figure out) what I would say to her. I look back now, and I can be embarrassed and laugh at it.”

He said he told her, “Shoshana, it’s going to be OK. Not only is God with you, but you’re a cook in a maintenance company in a Patriot missile battalion – you are so far behind enemy lines, so far removed from the fight, you will probably never see an Iraqi soldier.

“Then the next week, I found myself repeating it, and praying with her and encouraging her, week after week after week,” he said. “And then (March 20, 2003) we launched our campaign against the Iraqi army.”

The chaplain found himself with his unit, including the 507th Maintenance Company, in a convoy moving into Iraq. After a few long days and many vehicles getting stuck in the sand and breaking down, he said, the 507th missed a turn and became separated from the convoy. The unit eventually ended up driving through Nasiriyah, Iraq, where it was ambushed by Iraqi forces.

That ambush resulted in the deaths of 11 Soldiers, nine from the 507th, and six Soldiers becoming prisoners of war (Pfc. Jessica Lynch was in a hospital instead of with the other POWs because of her wounds). One of the dead included Spc. James Kiehl, who Koeman had baptized 12 days earlier.

One of the prisoners was Johnson, who became America’s first black female POW.

“How is that? A young lady concerned about her 4-year-old daughter back at Fort Bliss who heard from her chaplain that you will be OK, that God is with you and you’re a cook in a maintenance company ….” Koeman said. “She got wounded (shot in both of her ankles). She had to suffer that.

“Thankfully, she didn’t count on the words of her chaplain. Thankfully, she came to worship. Thankfully, she hid in her heart the words of the scripture,” he added.

Johnson told Koeman after her ordeal that the prisoners were not allowed to talk, or make any sounds, but one thing they did allow her to do was sing “Amazing Grace.”

“She would sing it, at least once, if not twice or three times a day, and that song that she sang in that prison touched the heart of just one prison guard,” he added. “You see, the prison guards were given a standing order. If the Americans come, if they try to liberate the prisoners, you are to execute the prisoners. So, there was really no hope for these prisoners. But hearing those beautiful words: Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound … changed and touched one man’s heart enough, just enough, so he reached out to his family in Baghdad and gave them a note to find the American forces and let them know where the prisoners were at.

“And so, being that the American forces knew where (the prisoners) were and they didn’t just stumble upon them, they used a precision strike, seized the initiative and took advantage of the situation without the Iraqis knowing – they were able to liberate all of the prisoners (which included two AH-64 Apache pilots who were shot down March 24),” Koeman said.

The chaplain then began singing “Amazing Grace” with those in attendance joining in.

“God was her refuge, her strength,” he said about Johnson before quoting Psalms 46:1-4. “An ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, and the mountains quake with their surging. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. Amen.”